


Perfectly Imperfect Christmas

by Hikaru Yuy (SailorVFan10)



Series: Operation: Parenting [5]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 17:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17146295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorVFan10/pseuds/Hikaru%20Yuy
Summary: Relena surprises Heero with an incredibly unexpected Christmas present, all the while Zechs tries to make up for the time he broke Heero's rather expensive tablet. Christmas at the Yuys doesn't have to be the dictionary definition of perfection, it just has to fit Heero's definition.





	Perfectly Imperfect Christmas

Heero was still half asleep when Relena dragged him out of bed because "Santa was here, Heero, let's have Millie open presents!" He hadn't even had coffee yet, though he could smell some brewing--clearly Relena thought ahead. He'd been up until about four in the morning wrapping up the gifts, and some of them proved too tricky for his expertise, so he tied ribbons and placed bows on those awkwardly shaped gifts and placed them  _ just so _ under and by the tree before slinking off to bed for two or so hours of sleep.

He tried to sit down on the couch, bleary eyed, but missed and ended up sitting on the floor instead, which was fine with him. He stifled a yawn as he watched Relena pick out a gift he didn't remember placing under the tree and handed it to him.

"I want you to open this first." She sat down on the couch, tucking her legs under her, having a perfect view to watch everything unfold.

"Before I've had my coffee? Or changed into something that isn't Santa hat patterned lounge pants?"

"Yes," Relena said sweetly. "It's a very special present that I think you'll like."

The box itself was rather large, covered with plain metallic green wrapping paper with a glittery gold ribbon. The gift tag said, in Relena's rather perfect script,  _ To my dear husband, from your devoted wife _ . He swallowed down a chuckle at that. Certainly Relena was a devoted wife to him--more devoted than he thought he ever deserved--but she could've just gone the 'to Heero, from Relena' route. Tugging at the end of the ribbon, and carefully undoing the paper wrapping, he revealed a plain white box one would store a fancy large hat in. Surely she didn't buy him some weird thing. He pulled the lid off and inside was a smaller box and a onesie draped over that embroidered with giraffes and  _ Daddy's Littlest Princess _ on the front.

"Okay..." He picked the onesie up. "This is way too small for me. I don't think Millie would fit in this anymore."

Relena giggled. "Keep going..."

Opening the second box revealed a package of baby bibs, each one featuring a different ocean animal, and a much smaller box.

"Relena..."

"Don't say anything until you've opened the last box."

Inside the last box was a sonogram photo in a frame that said  _ Our Precious Bundle _ on the bottom. Gingerly he took out the picture frame and looked it over.

"This isn't from when you were pregnant with Millie."

Relena shook her head, hugging one of the throw pillows. "It's not." 

He twisted his body around to face her, his eyes shining with unbridled excitement.

"Are you...? You're...you're..."

She nodded. "I am."

Heero was on his knees now. "How far...?"

"Oh...about four months or so."

"Four-- _ four _ ?" 

Heero's brow knitted as he calculated four months back.

"You said that week was safe."

Relena looked absolutely sheepish as she avoided his gaze. "I...may have made a  _ slight _ miscalculation..."

Tentatively he pulled the throw pillow away from her midsection and noticed a slight swell there.

"We're having another girl," she murmured, as she ran her fingers through his hair.

Heero felt his heart swell until he thought it would burst.

"Relena..." It barely came out as a whisper.

"Heero." She pulled him into a kiss as his hands explored the just forming baby bump.

"Thank you," he said against her mouth.

"There  _ is _ something else..." she said, as he trailed kisses down her neck and shoulder, his hands dipping under the hem of her nightgown. She bit back a moan. " _ Heero _ ..."

He pulled away to look at her.

"It's  _ not _ hidden under your sleepwear?"

Relena shook her head, her smile playful. "It's not, no. It's under the tree."

"You're  _ sure _ you have nothing hidden?"

"You can explore  _ that _ \--" She kissed him. "--later tonight, once Millie is safely tucked away in the land of dreams, with no chance of being woken up by us."

Heero hummed in contentment. "I look forward to that, my lady." He got up from his knees and went back over to the tree.

"This isn't another sonogram that shows you're having twins or something, is there?" He went through the gifts and found one in the same metallic gift wrap as Relena's other gift.

Relena laughed. "No no, we're only having one. That gift is for you."

Heero ripped off the wrapping paper and tore open the flaps of the box--Heero Yuy didn't need a box cutter--and discovered there was another box inside, this one with  _ Microsoft Windows Surface Pro 10 _ written on it in some nice embossed lettering.

"Luc told me about what my brother did with your old one," Relena said.

"The toilet incident," Heero said. Zechs, in his anger towards one of his subordinates who, Heero loved to remind everyone, had nothing to do with his department, took Heero's old Surface Pro and tossed it into the men's room toilet, mistaking it for the subordinate's.

"Relena, you didn't have to--"

"It's not from me," Relena interrupted. "My  _ other _ surprise to you is later, as I told you. That gift is from my brother. He dropped it off last night, and then I wrapped it up and stuck it under the tree while you were putting Millie to bed."

Heero unboxed the tablet and booted it up. There was a note stuffed into the box that fell to the floor. On it it said,  _ Are we even now? _

"After all these years, your brother still doesn't know that I work on one-to-one odds." He folded up the note and slipped it into the pocket of his PJ bottoms.

"It's still not suitable recompense?"

"He thinks this makes us even." He smirked. "Us being even would mean that I get to take that fancy little iPad he carries everywhere and destroy it somehow. That would be us being even."

"Zechs did always prefer making it up to you to leveling the playing field..." The look she gave him said,  _ Please don't break his iPad. _

"You have nothing to worry about on that front," he said in response to that look. "I'll be good."

* * *

Christmas morning, the outside world was unusually quiet as the sun just broke the horizon, streaking the sky with all sorts of colours. Heero sat on the front stoop, a tattered and very faded hoodie the only addition to his sleep ensemble as he lit a cigarette.

"My mother videocalled," Relena said, as she held out a mug of piping hot coffee to him. "She wanted to see Millie, and apologised for being unable to fly out for Christmas. Her presents are in the post, and she hopes to see us for New Years."

Heero took the mug from her, cigarette dangling from his lips. "You know I never have New Years off."

"I know you never  _ ask _ for it off," Relena corrected. "She wanted to know if we would have Christmas over at the family estate next year."

Heero paused to take a sip of coffee. "We're gonna have another baby at that point," he said, before taking a long drag on his cigarette. "Babies don't travel all that well, you know that."

"I just hate the fact that she's alone this time of year." She leaned her arms on top of the porch bannister. "With my father gone, and me not living at home anymore...."

"She has that butler guy. Pagan?"

"Pagan, yes. But that's not the same as having your family around you."

"Doesn't she have a sister? Irina or something?"

"She moved to L3 last year--Heero, what's the matter?"

Heero sighed.

"My mother adores you. You're the son she never had. She thinks you're wonderful, and kind, and such a good husband..."

"She thinks I'm someone I'm not," he said.

"But you are all of those things!" 

"No, not about that." He took another drag off his cigarette. "That I'm from the same social background you're from."

"She knows that you're not from an aristocratic background, Heero. She doesn't care."

"It's not just that." He didn't know how to word what he wanted to say. "She just doesn't 'get' me."

Relena moved closer to him as he finished up his cigarette. "Does she need to 'get' you to see how good you are to me?"

Heero shrugged and snuffed out the butt of his cigarette on the side of the makeshift ashtray before leaving it in there to smolder and eventually die out.

"It'd just be nice to not feel like a fake. It's exhausting."

"You don't have to fake anything when I'm around," Relena reassured, before a noise came from Heero's PJ bottom waistband.

"Millie's awake," Heero said, before standing. "I'll go get her."

He never did tell Relena that he had somehow rigged up a way to connect his phone to the baby monitor via Bluetooth so he knew at all times what his baby girl was doing. She just assumed he had several baby monitor handsets he carried around on his person.

* * *

Heero, now in a t-shirt emblazoned with the Preventers logo, with jeans replacing the Christmas themed pajama bottoms, finished getting Millie ready in her Christmas Red dress with fluffy white trim Heero had picked out on a whim one day whilst window shopping in downtown Brussels. Millie didn't seem too keen on it, but Heero adored it, and made sure to take a few pictures of her in it with her white stockings and black patent leather shoes before both the stockings and the shoes ended up on the floor somewhere within the next hour. Putting a few pieces of red and green curly ribbon on a bobby pin, he pinned back her hair. Her hair colouring may have been from him, but thankfully Millie got her soft and very fine hair from Relena.

Millie really wanted to eat the curly ribbon. She settled for her fingers instead.

"Ready, sweetheart?"

Though Millie was smiling and even giggling, she shook her head no.

_ Well if that isn't mood, I don't know what is _ . "Let's go see Grandma."

" _ No _ ." Millie, like her father, wasn't too happy about socialising.

"There's presents."  _ That _ seemed to sweeten the deal.

"Presents?!" Millie still didn't have her grasp of 'R's down, but she tried.

"All for you." He carried her out of her bedroom and down the stairs. "From Santa, from me, from Mama..."

Heero set her down at the bottom of the steps and watched her wobble a little as she very carefully and slowly made her way to the living room filled with so many people: her mama, her Uncle Zechs, her two cousins who were bickering over whether the one set of lights was blue or green, her Aunt Luc, and of course Grandma. She made a beeline right to Relena, who had, between her feet on the floor, a rather large present with Millie's name on it, wrapped in shiny, child attention grabbing, paper. Heero leaned against the doorway, arms folded across his chest, as Millie sat down in front of it.

"Heero, would you like to help Millie unwrap one of Santa's presents?" Relena asked. "I need to get the camera."

Noin was recording everything on her phone to upload to Facebook later; Zechs was certainly busy taking pictures himself, as if his children behaving somewhat was such a rare occasion it made a noteworthy picture. Heero shrugged before trading places with Relena.

"Oh isn't she just  _ darling _ ?" Marlene gushed. "You look just like your daddy, Millie."

_ Unfortunate _ , Heero thought, as his wife came back with her phone.

"Okay, I'm ready."

Millie watched as Heero tore off the paper, her small hands grabbing bits and pieces and waving them around as a box was revealed.

"Oooh, it's sensory blocks," Relena said, sounding more enthusiastic than was probably warranted. "She'll be able to build so many things with them!"

"And knock them all over the place," Heero said.

"They're bean bag material or something, so they're soft and make crinkle noises." Relena shrugged. "Supposedly good for her age."

One by one the boxes were opened, revealing all sorts of noisy, colourful toys that Millie couldn't really care less about--she was more interested in the various ribbons, bows, shiny papers, and in one case a rather interesting looking box. One of the parenting books Heero had read said this was completely normal behaviour, but it made him think his daughter was secretly part cat.

* * *

 

"So?" Relena asked, as her family made their way into the dining room for Christmas dinner, after an entire morning and afternoon of gift exchange and wrapping paper carnage. "How do you think everything's going so far?"

Heero surveyed the disaster zone that was his living room, full of empty or half empty boxes and the remnants of gift wrap littering the floor and couch, and smiled a little.

"As it should be," he replied, before giving his wife a peck on the mouth and ushering her to her seat at the table. "Perfectly imperfect."


End file.
